Comparison of different certifiable and non-certifiable Corporate Social Responsibility standards in the European telecommunications industry

Abstract

The CSR / sustainability governance systems agenda gained momentum during the past years when several new standards got published. Two standards were developed as a response to the ISO 26000 standard and a new German sustainability standard was published for example. With these new standards and the older ones such as GRI, AA1000 being available on the market, questions such as which is the standard with the highest contribution to sustainable development or what is the difference between a certifiable and non-certifiable standard are yet to be answered. In this master thesis, a set of criteria has been developed for analysing and comparing the scientific quality of these standards. These criteria include aspects such as content, the quality of the control mechanisms and legitimacy. Furthermore, based on these criteria, the design of an optimal CSR standard will be explained. The aim of this thesis, as it has been described, is to find out which of the seven standards is the ‘best’ one. This standard will then be analysed in how far Deutsche Telekom complies with it and what are the missing gaps. Based on the detected gaps recommendations for achieving full compliance will be given. Overall, this thesis provides an overview about the available CSR / sustainability governance systems and further provides an insight into the telecommunications industry by stating which environmental and social impacts occur during the life cycle of operating a mobile network. Additionally, the CSR and sustainability approaches and strategies of the most important European telecommunication companies as well as inter-industry associations will be presented.